My husband and I have been married for 3 years, together for 8. We were friends for 2 years before we started dating, and we pretty much moved in together after 6 months together.
There have always been problems. He and I have very different ideas of cleaning, for example. Growing up, my mom worked 3 jobs and the house had to be spotless when she got home or I would be subject to a barrage of emotional abuse. Due to this, clutter and mess makes me anxious. I'm not nearly as much of a stickler as my mom, but my husband couldn't care less about mess. His dorm room tub was black before I moved in. He's never been good with doing chores, and I've always had to nag him. But honestly, he's improved with that.
Sex has also always been an issue. My husband has ED. It was better for the first year of our relationship, we had sex every day. But for the past 4 years, it's 2-4 times per year. He has been diagnosed with low T, and because we want to have children the doctor said no to T replacement and advised my husband to exercise in order to increase it naturally. He also has a prescription of Viagra. But he has not followed through on the doctor's orders, and due to the long time without sex it has gotten to the point where I don't even feel attracted to him anymore. We both have gained significant amounts of weight - me due to PCOS and a reversal of my eating disorder from anorexia to overeating, him due to overeating. This does impact my attraction to him, which I feel terrible about because he still tells me how beautiful I am despite gaining 80 pounds. But the larger part of the attraction is that I got so frustrated when being gotten in the mood, and him being unable to get or m aintain an erection and nothing happening, that I feel like I shut down my sex drive as a defense mechanism. I don't get horny, so I don't get disappointed.
My husband also has a chronic illness, IBS, which requires him to have FMLA because he works at a call center and can not work if he has an attack. I understand that the IBS is not his fault, but he knows certain foods trigger it, and will eat them anyway because "I thought maybe this time would be different." He doesn't take his medications as he is supposed to. His FMLA actually ran out before the end of the year last year, and miraculously he was able to work through it. When it renewed and he had time again, he has missed 16 days of work since January 1. I have suggested he keep a food journal to find a pattern in his eating. He hasn't. I've suggested he talk to his superiors at work to see if they can work out allowing him to go to the bathroom so he can go to work on days he is sick rather than missing a whole day because he's in the bathroom for a cumulative 1 hour. He has not. He says it's stress, not food, because he hates his job but has taken no initiative to sear ch for another job. His FMLA uses his vacation time, and if he has no vacation time it is unpaid. We have lost $700 of income in the past month. I feel that I resent him because he isn't doing what he could to mitigate this.
Most days I feel like his mother. We can't go to the grocery without him trying to buy everything in sight and completely blowing my shopping list. I wake up at 4am for work, so I go to bed early, and he goes with me but then tries to keep me awake talking to me or tickling or poking me, no matter how many times I explain why I just want to go to sleep. If I leave for the weekend to go see my family, I come back to the house completely trashed. He misplaces items all the time, in plain sight, and will text me while I'm at work because he can't find it.
The combination of feeling that I'm married to a child and the lack of sex leaves me not wanting to be around him at all. I pick fights, because everything he says and does irks me. I don't like him touching me. We don't talk, even when we try to have a date night, we end up both on our phones. I nag and criticize and am irritable all the time. He says he feels like he can't do anything right, and that breaks my heart because I lived like that with my mother, and now I fear I'm turning into her. When we argue, it gets nasty. He has called me a ***** and told me to **** off. I shut down. Last night we argued until 1am, when I fell asleep because I literally couldn't stay awake any more. But nothing was resolved. I don't feel in love with him anymore, and I fear I am being emotionally abusive because of my resentment. I fully recognize the things I am doing wrong: I nag, I criticize, I am not as affectionate as he needs, I'm a perfectionist, I am not available emotionally. I j ust don't know how to fix it, or if I can at this point. I don't know if the resentment has gotten too deep.
I don't know what to do. :(
There have always been problems. He and I have very different ideas of cleaning, for example. Growing up, my mom worked 3 jobs and the house had to be spotless when she got home or I would be subject to a barrage of emotional abuse. Due to this, clutter and mess makes me anxious. I'm not nearly as much of a stickler as my mom, but my husband couldn't care less about mess. His dorm room tub was black before I moved in. He's never been good with doing chores, and I've always had to nag him. But honestly, he's improved with that.
Sex has also always been an issue. My husband has ED. It was better for the first year of our relationship, we had sex every day. But for the past 4 years, it's 2-4 times per year. He has been diagnosed with low T, and because we want to have children the doctor said no to T replacement and advised my husband to exercise in order to increase it naturally. He also has a prescription of Viagra. But he has not followed through on the doctor's orders, and due to the long time without sex it has gotten to the point where I don't even feel attracted to him anymore. We both have gained significant amounts of weight - me due to PCOS and a reversal of my eating disorder from anorexia to overeating, him due to overeating. This does impact my attraction to him, which I feel terrible about because he still tells me how beautiful I am despite gaining 80 pounds. But the larger part of the attraction is that I got so frustrated when being gotten in the mood, and him being unable to get or m aintain an erection and nothing happening, that I feel like I shut down my sex drive as a defense mechanism. I don't get horny, so I don't get disappointed.
My husband also has a chronic illness, IBS, which requires him to have FMLA because he works at a call center and can not work if he has an attack. I understand that the IBS is not his fault, but he knows certain foods trigger it, and will eat them anyway because "I thought maybe this time would be different." He doesn't take his medications as he is supposed to. His FMLA actually ran out before the end of the year last year, and miraculously he was able to work through it. When it renewed and he had time again, he has missed 16 days of work since January 1. I have suggested he keep a food journal to find a pattern in his eating. He hasn't. I've suggested he talk to his superiors at work to see if they can work out allowing him to go to the bathroom so he can go to work on days he is sick rather than missing a whole day because he's in the bathroom for a cumulative 1 hour. He has not. He says it's stress, not food, because he hates his job but has taken no initiative to sear ch for another job. His FMLA uses his vacation time, and if he has no vacation time it is unpaid. We have lost $700 of income in the past month. I feel that I resent him because he isn't doing what he could to mitigate this.
Most days I feel like his mother. We can't go to the grocery without him trying to buy everything in sight and completely blowing my shopping list. I wake up at 4am for work, so I go to bed early, and he goes with me but then tries to keep me awake talking to me or tickling or poking me, no matter how many times I explain why I just want to go to sleep. If I leave for the weekend to go see my family, I come back to the house completely trashed. He misplaces items all the time, in plain sight, and will text me while I'm at work because he can't find it.
The combination of feeling that I'm married to a child and the lack of sex leaves me not wanting to be around him at all. I pick fights, because everything he says and does irks me. I don't like him touching me. We don't talk, even when we try to have a date night, we end up both on our phones. I nag and criticize and am irritable all the time. He says he feels like he can't do anything right, and that breaks my heart because I lived like that with my mother, and now I fear I'm turning into her. When we argue, it gets nasty. He has called me a ***** and told me to **** off. I shut down. Last night we argued until 1am, when I fell asleep because I literally couldn't stay awake any more. But nothing was resolved. I don't feel in love with him anymore, and I fear I am being emotionally abusive because of my resentment. I fully recognize the things I am doing wrong: I nag, I criticize, I am not as affectionate as he needs, I'm a perfectionist, I am not available emotionally. I j ust don't know how to fix it, or if I can at this point. I don't know if the resentment has gotten too deep.
I don't know what to do. :(
Put the internet to work for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment